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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658507">but I want for you this, that you are well</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippuri/pseuds/pippuri'>pippuri</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Episode: s15e20 Carry On Coda, Gen, an Important concept :)), sam praying to jack, sam rebuilding his support network and his relationships :), this is not a fix-it fic bc nothing needs to be fixed xoxoxoxo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:41:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,194</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658507</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippuri/pseuds/pippuri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>you leave the rental car in cheyenne, and claire lets you drive her rustbucket of a car all the way to sioux falls. it gives you something to focus on, something that isn’t the crushing knowledge that sometimes things just fall apart. you did the same for jack once, and you silently send him a prayer somewhere in the scrubbed prairie of nebraska. it's less of a prayer and more of a reassurance, a 'thinking of you' card sent via the angel radio signals you know he’s tapped into. </p><p>//</p><p>post-finale, sam rebuilding his relationships and not being alone in the world</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>but we're gonna be well (i'll give you my best shot)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>but I want for you this, that you are well</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>anything that's in italics and quotation marks is signed! </p><p>as always, thank you bry for a) reading this and b) helping me end it and c) watching 15 seasons with supernatural with me over the last nine months</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You try to make it work with Eileen. She’s living in an apartment over a music store she got for cheap, and after a few weeks the endless cacophony of noise bothers you less. You try for three months and four days, and on a Friday morning she catches you before you leave for a haunting Claire called about. </p><p><em> “I don’t think I can do this anymore</em>, <em> Sam</em>,” she signs, and you can’t make yourself feel anything but relieved. </p><p>“Yeah,” you say, and then sign “<em>I know</em>.” </p><p>“Maybe if …” she says, and trails off. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Maybe if your brother hadn’t died. Maybe if she could look at you without the memory of a knife in your shoulder, of being controlled. Maybe if you had been given a chance, a real chance, not one colored by manipulation and betrayal. </p><p><em> “I know</em>,” you sign again. “I have to meet Claire in Wyoming but—” It gets too hard to speak, your hands are trembling. “<em>I don’t have to come back</em>,” you finish. “<em>I can stay with J-O-D-Y.” </em></p><p>“It isn’t goodbye,” she says. “<em>I still have your dog.” </em></p><p>You laugh, because the only other option is breaking down, right there in Eileen’s doorway to the faint sound of someone pounding ‘A Little Nightmusic’ in the practice rooms below you.  </p><p>“Six months,” she continues. “Tell me where you are in six months, and I’ll bring him to you.” </p><p>“I’ll call you,” you say, “Not just for Miracle. I’ll miss you,” and she smiles. “I still love you,” and you sign it as you’re talking, “<em>love”</em>, right over your heart, so she knows. </p><p><em> “I know. Me too</em>,” and the pianist below you moves into playing something you recognize as Beethoven, and it sounds too sad, too on the nose for you to be standing in the hallway outside Eileen’s apartment for the last time. </p><p>“Okay, um …” you start, and she pushes you a little out the door. </p><p><em> “Don’t want to be late for C-L-A-I-R-E,” </em> she signs, and you know she’s teasing. Last time you were late meeting Claire, she had gotten herself arrested for breaking and entering, and you had to pretend to be Jimmy Novak to get her out of the county jail. </p><p>And that’s it. You don’t look back, not once. You know she’ll be there. </p><p>/ </p><p>The haunting is easy—the ghost of a scorned lover returning to wreak havoc on cheating men. A run-of-the-mill salt and burn, and you know Claire only called you because she was worried about you. She’ll never say it, she reminds you too much of Dean in that way, but you can tell in the way she asks you how you’re doing, both casual and heavy with the weight of Dean’s death. </p><p>She does an awful job pretending to be surprised when you tell her you’re heading back to Jody’s with her, and almost immediately admits that Eileen had texted her. </p><p>“She wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything stupid,” and yeah, you know. You had called other Charlie, asking her to casually drop in on Eileen, and she’ll probably do just as bad of a job pretending she hadn’t talked to you. You don’t mind. You know Eileen won’t either.</p><p>You leave the rental car in Cheyenne, and Claire lets you drive her rustbucket of a car all the way to Sioux Falls. It gives you something to focus on, something that isn’t the crushing knowledge that sometimes things just fall apart. You did the same for Jack once, and you silently send him a prayer somewhere in the scrubbed prairie of Nebraska. It’s less of a prayer and more of a reassurance, a <em> Thinking of You </em> card sent via the angel radio signals you know he’s tapped into. </p><p>Halfway there, you realize you hadn’t told Claire about Castiel. That the angel wearing her father’s body sacrificed himself to save the world. </p><p>“Claire,” you start hesitantly, and she looks at you, slightly confused. It’s the first thing either of you have said since leaving Cheyenne. “Castiel—” and she waves you off. </p><p>“Oh, that. I know.” </p><p>You’re confused now. “Did Jody tell you?”</p><p>She shakes her head. “I mean, yeah she did, but I already knew. I could <em> feel </em> him sometimes, in some corner of my brain. Like, I <em> was </em> him. That doesn’t really go away, does it?” And she’s looking at you expectingly, and shrugs when you don’t say anything. “I just don’t feel him anymore. It’s just … empty where he was. It’s happened before, but he always came back.” She pauses for a second, and you can feel her staring at you. “He’s not coming back this time, is he?” </p><p>That’s what almost breaks you. You can’t answer, have to stare hard at the quickly-darkening road in front of you, breathe slow and long. Cas was living on borrowed time; you all were. You still are. Dean never told you what happened in the bunker that night, like he had locked it away in the same box where the memories of your mom were. </p><p>“No,” you finally manage. “Not this time.” </p><p>Claire nods, and says “My dad died a long time ago, anyways.”</p><p>/</p><p>Jody’s waiting in the driveway when you finally pull up. It’s half-past two in the morning, and you haven’t seen her in what feels like a lifetime. </p><p>“Hi,” you say, or you think you say, and Jody’s already there, hugging you close. </p><p>“Sam,” she says, “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>There’s nothing really more to say to that, and you let her hold you. Claire brings your bag into the house, and once Jody lets go, you follow her. Alex is sitting at the table, surrounded by textbooks, and there’s two plates of food, covered in foil on the table. </p><p>“Alex is almost done with college. She’s got a job lined up at Sioux Falls General and everything,” Jody says, and you can hear the pride in her voice. Claire smacks the back of Alex’s head as she walks to her seat at the table, and mutters “Nerd,” under her breath. Alex rolls her eyes, and says, “Must be <em> so </em> hard being the dumb one, Claire,” and they both glare at the other before laughing. It reminds you so painfully of Dean that your chest aches. </p><p>“We saved you dinner, but I think it’s probably ice cold by now,” Jody says. “Feel free to heat it up or …” She trails off as Claire takes a huge bite of the chicken. “Or you can have no manners, like Claire.”</p><p>Claire grins up at Jody, her mouth full of food. “Oh, you love me anyways, Jody,” and Jody just sighs and shakes her head. You eat as much as you can manage; it’s been hard remembering basic things like hunger since Dean died, and you spent all of the first month living off of protein shakes. </p><p>Jody had set up Claire’s room for you, and Claire pretended to be angry about taking the couch, but she put too much drama into it. Her room is small, and painted light blue, a picture of her and Castiel (of her and her <em> dad </em> , you remind yourself) framed on the nightstand. Her bed is almost too short for you, but you don’t really care. Your phone died sometime after you crossed the state border into South Dakota, and you finally charge it to open the three messages from Eileen. There’s a selfie of her and other Charlie, followed by a message that just says <em> Real subtle, Sam</em>, and then a picture of Miracle curled up in her bed. You can’t stop yourself from smiling. </p><p><em> Made it to Jody’s</em>, you send, and then, <em> The dog better not get used to that, he’s sleeping on the floor with me</em>. </p><p>She doesn’t reply, and you send <em> I miss you </em> before you can regret it, shut your phone off, and try to sleep. </p><p>/ </p><p>You wake up, disoriented and cold a few hours later. Sleeping’s never been easy for you, but ever since Dean died, you’ve found yourself back in your post-Hell sleeping schedule. Which is to say, mostly being awake and mostly having nightmares when you do sleep. Some of the dreams are new, watching Dean bleed to death over and over, and some are the same dreams you’ve been having for as long as you can remember, of your body not being <em> yours.</em> You roll over to check your phone—it’s five in the morning and Eileen’s sent you a text. It just says <em> I miss you too</em>, and, yeah. </p><p>This is enough. </p><p>/ </p><p>The time goes quickly, quicker than you really expected it to. </p><p>You join Claire on a hunt practically down the street, what turns out to be a pair of vetalas. It’s messy, and one manages to get two seconds from ripping out Claire’s throat. She’s still breathing, her hair soaking through with blood, and you press your hands hard against the gash in her neck, the remains of the vetalas crumbing around you. </p><p>“It’s okay, Claire,” you say, and there’s a sickening sense of déjà vu. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay.” </p><p>She opens her mouth like she’s trying to talk, but there’s only little bubbles of spit, her breath rasping desperately. She looks terrified, and you died when you were twenty-three, just like this, scared and bloody. </p><p>“You’re going to be okay,” you say again, desperately trying to hold her neck together. <em> Jack, </em> you pray, <em> Jack please if you’re listening, please it’s Claire. </em>You don’t expect anything, but suddenly, there’s an ambulance outside, and Alex runs in, her eyes wild. </p><p>“Something went wrong, didn’t it? You left and I just … I couldn’t shake it.” She stops, sees Claire limp and pale in your arms, and it’s like she puts a mask on. She’s calm, collected, and you watch in awe as the girl you remember as a terrified victim in the basement of a vamp nest begins field triage with steady hands. </p><p>Everything else is a blur, and you tell some insane story about a rabid dog to the EMTs until Jody shows up and takes over. Alex sits down next to you once Claire’s been taken away in the ambulance, and she starts crying, almost uncontrollably. </p><p>“How do you <em> do </em> it, Sam?” She asks, her hands sticky with Claire’s blood, and it’s only after she asks that she looks at you with realization. “Shit, I didn’t …” </p><p>You shake your head. “It’s fine. Really, Alex, it’s fine.” </p><p>She leans against you, and you’re reminded of Magda, of Jack. Of how you won’t fail people the way you were failed so, so many times. You take the towel that an EMT gave you to press against the open cut on your scalp, and try to rub the blood off of her palms. </p><p>“I don’t know,” you finally say, and she looks up at you. “The job we do, you’re gonna see a lot of death. Hell, I’ve watched everyone I love die at least once.”</p><p>She laughs, a kind of gurgling, hysterical thing. “This isn’t helping, Sam.” </p><p>You laugh too, and tap her hand until she flips it over, begin rubbing the blood off from under her nails. “Yeah, fair. I guess it’s just—there’s a lot we don’t know about this life. Who’s to say we know everything about the next?” </p><p>Alex is quiet for a few minutes, lets you finish scrubbing the blood from her wrists. “You’re religious?” </p><p>You shrug. “I was, for a long time.” You think about Jack, how the boy you loved like he was your own child became something <em> more </em>. “I think I still am,” you say. “I know that someone better than me, better than all of this is out there. And I believe they’re doing the right thing. You knew that something bad was going down here tonight. I guess I believe in that.” </p><p>Alex doesn’t really respond, but she rests her head on your shoulder. There’s still blood soaking into your t-shirt, and it’s dried on your hands, but tonight at least, Alex’s hands are clean. </p><p>“I can drive us home,” you say after a while. “You’ve got classes in the morning, yeah?” </p><p>“Spanish,” she says quietly. “I haven’t done the homework yet.” </p><p>You help her stand, pick up Claire’s jacket from the floor. It’s stained with blood, but she’ll probably think it’s badass. She’s a lot like Dean, and for the first time, it doesn’t hurt to think that. </p><p>The drive back barely takes five minutes—you only drove as a way to transport the weapons. Alex stares blankly out the window, but she hugs you before she shuts the door to her bedroom. She’ll be okay for tonight, you decide, and sit at the kitchen table, wait for Jody to get home. You send Eileen a quick text, <em> Claire’s in the hospital, she’s stable.  </em></p><p>Eileen had been on a hunt in rural Vermont for the last two weeks, something killing skiers halfway down a mountain, and you knew she wouldn’t see your text for at least another few days. She’s got the dog with her, and on your last video call she showed you how she had trained him to shake. </p><p><em> “I’m training him to only respond to signs. Keep you on your toes,” </em>she had told you.</p><p><em> “Like I’d forget,” </em> you replied.</p><p>/</p><p>In mid-May, you meet Eileen in upstate New York. She’s been living there for a while, and you drive Alex and Claire out to visit Patience at college. You and Jody had driven to the bunker a couple weeks back to pick up the ingredients for witch-killing bullets, after a particularly nasty run-in with a coven in Michigan. She spent the entire drive there convincing you to take the Impala back, and even though you had to pull over to switch cars with Jody halfway through the trip home, you’re glad you have it.  </p><p>Claire and Alex both spend the entire drive hopped up on energy drinks, and Claire gets worryingly close to crashing at least three times. </p><p>“She’s <em> not </em> a good driver,” Alex had loudly announced the first time you handed Claire the keys, and you wish for Dean’s sake that you had listened to her. You know he’ll manage to will himself back from the dead if anything happens to his car. </p><p>You drop them both off on campus, Patience happily waving to you from the window of her apartment, and drive the two more hours to Eileen’s. You haven’t seen her since you left that Friday morning, almost six months to the day. She’s standing on the porch when you pull up, and Miracle runs out to meet you. </p><p>It’s awkward for about thirty seconds, and then Eileen signs, <em> “This shouldn’t be so uncomfortable</em>,” and suddenly it’s fine. She looks good. Happy. Like you remember her from the first time you met. </p><p>“How’s the car?” she asks, signing <em> sister-in-law </em> as she says car. Dean never caught onto that, and Eileen had gone so far as to tell him that it just was the sign for “car”. </p><p>“Claire almost crashed it at least three times,” and Eileen laughs. “Other than that, we’re here in one piece.” </p><p>She invites you in, and tosses you a beer from her fridge. <em> “ </em> I stopped buying that European shit you like,” she says loudly from the kitchen. You wait for her to turn around before answering, <em> “You’re E-U-R-O-P-E-A-N, Eileen</em>.” </p><p>You have to fingerspell European, and she grins delightedly at that, before signing back, <em> “Which is why I can say it’s shit.”  </em></p><p>The beer Eileen drinks is <em> actually </em> shit, and it tastes like something your dad would have given you when you were fifteen. Hell, it probably <em> is </em> something your dad gave you when you were fifteen. You don’t know how she can claim to be Irish and then seem to genuinely enjoy what you’re deciding is actually bottled piss. </p><p>“How are you?” you ask, after the shitty beer has made the room feel warm and homey. </p><p>She shrugs. <em> “Better some days than others. You know how it is.” </em> </p><p><em> “Yeah,” </em> you sign back. <em> “I do.”  </em></p><p>You lapse into silence, Eileen slowly drinking her second beer. You had forgotten how easy just <em> being </em> with her is. Like you don’t need to force a conversation to keep going; how you can just sit with her and understand everything. </p><p>Chuck had taken <em> so much </em> from you, that sometimes you feel like you’re drowning in their absence. And maybe this isn’t the future with Eileen that you had let yourself dream about. That future was stolen as soon as you had seen Chuck in that parking garage, grinning at you like Christmas morning. You can sometimes still see glimpses of that future, and you've let yourself mourn it. But you don’t have to mourn Eileen, not when she’s here, and smiling at you, and you feel more at ease than you have in months. </p><p>Eileen hands you another beer, and you pull a face at her. “Seriously, Eileen, I don’t know how you can drink this crap. I’m making tea instead. You want anything?”</p><p>She shakes her head, and calls after you, “How very middle-aged of you, Sam,” and you wait for the kettle to boil, and try to decide on which sign for ‘asshole’ you’re going to use. </p><p>/ </p><p>You leave the next morning, stiff from sleeping on Eileen’s couch, with Miracle in the backseat of the Impala. Eileen makes you a thermos of coffee, and gives you a six-pack of beer. </p><p><em> “Give it to P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E,” </em> she tells you as you’re leaving, <em> “ </em>She appreciates good beer.”</p><p>“She’s nineteen, any beer is good beer to her,” you answer, but take it anyways. </p><p>“I told her I’d drive her out to Sioux Falls after her summer classes finish,” Eileen says. “If you’re still at Jody’s, I’ll see you then?”</p><p><em>“Of course,” </em>you answer. You start to sign ‘<em>goodbye,’</em> but Eileen grabs your hand. </p><p><em> “Still not a goodbye</em>,” and you laugh. </p><p><em> “Okay. See you soon,” </em> and you watch her as you drive off in the rearview mirror, waving in the weak early morning light. </p><p>When you finally get to Ithaca, Claire and Alex are waiting for you, and Patience introduces you to her roommate as her Uncle Sam. You have to pretend to be very interested in a spam email on your phone in order to blink the tears out of your eyes. </p><p>You let Claire drive the first leg of the trip, and an extremely hungover Alex stretches out in the backseat with Miracle. You tune the radio to a local NPR station, but Claire leans over you and grabs Dean’s old box of cassette tapes out of the glove compartment. </p><p>“Driver picks the music!” She exclaims, and somehow manages to cram a Led Zeppelin cassette into the player, and turns up the volume higher than either you or Alex want, all while keeping one eye on the road. </p><p>Alex groans, “Can’t you drive, Sam?” from the backseat, and Claire just turns up the music louder. It’s familiar, and entirely new, and you silently send an apology to Dean for when Claire inevitably crashes his car. </p><p>This is good. This is enough.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i LOVED the finale and am coming to the realization that this isn't a commonly held belief .... but i loved it and it was a fitting end to the show. </p><p>&amp; w/ the whole eileen thing! i love her and i see her and sam being very close for the rest of their lives but -- i don't think either of them would have been able to move on from all of the awful things that happened to them if they remained together. if you want to know what i DO think please check out bry's fic  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27640856">what's worth saving (is never worth letting go to waste)</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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